I've owned probably around 5 headphones through Sony. The only thing I can say is that their headphones are good quality for the price. Mine only would last around more than a year before they would brake... It was my fault though, cords don't do well in -30C temperatures and you accidentally yank on them. I would purchase these for the price but I bought my audio technica athm50x a few months ago and I'm in love. At least with these headphones, the cord is replaceable so these should be good in cold climates.

Looks like this one comes with 2 cords that you can swap out.. they do look a little flimsy though. Have you ever owned the MDR-7506? It has a somewhat unique cord design that makes it very hard to accidentally yank. Cord isn't replaceable but the headphones aren't too expensive and sound great.

These headphones are good and do many things well for the price. They're not the best, but very good and fun. Points to consider in no particular order: They look metal: they're basically all plastic with a painted silver finish. While some deem this a bad thing, it keeps the weight down so on your head they feel very nice. The headband is very flexible and I don't see that breaking easily at all. The padding on the headband is ok, could use a bit more (depends on the crown of your head i guess). I hate on ear headphones; yet these are superbly comfortable on your ears. They're like giant marshmallows. The only complaint with them is that they do make your ears warm after prolonged use. The cable is detachable and these headphones fold to fit into a case, which I believe is provided (I had the mdr x10's which came with a case). As for the sound, they're a V shaped sound signature, so treble and BASS is at the forefront. They're very clear headphones, don't have much depth to the sound stage but their main selling point is the bass. These headphones are akin to mini subwoofers on your ears. They're bassier headphones that go deeper and hit harder, but they're considerably more expensive. These are very good at bass which is what they were designed for. Overall whether you think they'll be worth it to you is obviously subjective. Go to amazon and type in sony xb and you'll see several different models which are all tuned a bit differently but more or less will be the same sound signature. For reference, these were the ones I had: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDRX10-RED-Headphones-Diaphragms/dp/B00972M942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426812981&sr=8-1&keywords=mdr+x10
Cheers

If you listen to a lot of hip hop and rap, these are for you, same with any genre of EDM. I have these and the athm50s. If you listen to a wider variety of music grab the audio technica. These are bass cannons.